Transformative activism and feminist solidarity: A qualitative research on the personal narratives of Polish activist women

This paper draws on the initial research results among the Polish political activists of the feminist/ LGBTIQ movement, which immigrated to other cities in Europe due to the ongoing struggle for 'gender' in Poland. Through conducting life-story interviews with 10 Polish activists/ immigrant women, this study tries to reveal the importance of individual narratives of activists rather than emphasizing narratives of social movements (Davis, 2002 in Makaros & Blit-Cohen, 2022). From 2012 onwards, several European Countries, especially Poland, began to see the rise of conservative and fundamentalist social movements against the perceived threat of what they call 'gender ideology' or 'genderism' (Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018). Poland's women's rights activists and organizations have been attacked in recent years. Since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice Party's (PiS) government has targeted women's rights groups and organizations through raids, denial of funding, political rhetoric, disciplinary action, and retrogressive laws and policies. This paper's empirical analysis focuses on understanding activists' biographical histories to uncover how personal narratives of women affect their activist identity and how they conceptualize their activism. The study stresses activism as a subjective attitude connected to Polish women's self-identity. The study focuses on the relationship between activists' identity construction and political biographies (McAdam, 1986) by explicitly looking at how this Polish activist woman began to experience the specific socio-political shifts in their individual life as an activist and woman. The research exemplifies how political activist women's identities and experiences are ground for 'negotiation, contestation, deconstruction, and reconstruction' (Goulahsen, 2015, p. 162). The findings indicate that personal, social, and political incidents that women experience over the years have affected how they become activists, what it means for them, and how they perceive their activism now. The activism is explored as something that brings positive self-identification through the personal-political nexus (Makaros& Blit-Cohen, 2022) and potentially harms Polish activist women through the safeness and unsafeness of the personal/political sphere nexus. The patterns in this research highlight women's self-identification strategies, definition, and sense of belonging in a changing Europe (Goulahsen, 2015). Hence, it contributes to the current debate by presenting the theoretical grounds on which the study is based and particularly how they intersect: social movements studies and studies on gender and sexuality. The research seeks to fill this gap by giving voice to these unheard stories to understand Polish women's experiences of activism, migration, and identity negotiations.